To survey or not to survey?

We are in the process of buying a house, it dates from the early 1800s, so we were planning on having a full Buildings Survey done. However, DH has been wondering if it's really necessary. Reasons being:

1) Before the couple selling would accept our offer, they sent us a copy of the survey the last buyers had done (about 3 or 4 months ago, they sadly had to pull out) and their responses to it (e.g. survey said, some evidence of rot in timbers, they said, had wood treated professionally in 2010 etc etc), so that we knew what we were dealing with and wouldn't pull out upon doing our own survey. So would having our own survey done tell us anything we don't already know?

2) It is an old house, we have both grown up in old houses and understand the issues that go with them, so again how much difference will a survey make, as I understand the surveyors can't guarantee any of their statements/suggestions.

3) Our mortgage providers only require a Basic survey and Valuation - this has just been done - so we wouldn't be doing the survey for them.

But it just seems like the "done thing" to have a survey and the assumption seems to be that we'll get one, so am I missing something?

I think the mortgage company will insist on a valuation, but that is different to what you want to do. From your own point of view, we were in a similar position when we went to sealed bids on a "doer upper" and went to see an IFA afterwards to get all the finances in place. He advised that it was probably a waste of money to have a full survey - thats even more true for you if you have a copy of the survey that was done by previous buyers. It is likely to flag up the need for specialist reports - electricity, damp, timbers etc, so he advised just going ahead with the specialist reports for details of the likely costs / issues.

I would because, who knows, there couldhave been two surveys done and that is the least bad, and they're giving you the least bad one, whcih seems very honest but it could be disingenuous of them. my old bf was an estate agent.

Thank you, yes my first thought would have been to have a survey as the house is old, but I'm wondering what more it would tell us? Or is it just for peace of mind? Most surveys on a house of this age make scary reading, but in reality you can expect an old house to have some evidence of woodworm, likely to need a new roof at some point, etc, and it's nothing to be scared of if it's dealt with.

We'd redo the electrics, so that's not a problem, but maybe getting specialist reports for damp (though it had damp proof work in 2010) and roof/timbers would be a better use of money and tell us a little more.

The Mortgage company's Valuation has been done already, just last week.

Thank you Mu1berry, good advice on categorising recommendations.

AKiss, our offer is lower than the previous offer, they pulled out due to redundancy, it's very sad, and the sellers had already moved out, so were needing to sell quickly, luckily for us.

We know this was the most recent survey, and tbh it would make grim reading if you weren't used to old houses, but having corresponded with the sellers, they've done a lot of work to the house and preempted a few issues, so it seems to have been in safe hands.

But maybe we should just spend the money. Moving house is so expensive!

How about compromising with the sort of surveys (damp, timber, roof) that won't cost you anything, but might give you some ball parks for future works. There will always be things that no survey on earth will find (we found some dry rot when plaster was removed e.g.), and you know roughly what you're dealing with. Especially if the previous survey was done by a reputable company.

But that survey could be out of date for all you know. Yes it's unlikely, but what if they had discovered dry rot in the interim? Unlikely I know but for a few hundred pounds you could save yourself a fortune in the long term.

The survey you are speaking about is someone else's survey done on the property and you say the sellers have already moved out. For your own piece of mind, I would get my own full structural survey carried out

Well, we've been in our c200 year old house for a couple of years now. We paid a surveyor £100 to do a visual inspection and to provide verbal feedback. We also paid for an independent damp and timber survey from here. We expected damp, worm, electrics, boiler, kitchen and bathrooms to need doing. The roof was done 25 years ago and the windows in last 10 years. We had engineers reports and evidence of other remedial works from the vendors.

I think, if you know old houses, you know to expect to do work, a survey is not going to tell you very much. When we have had full surveys done they've just covered their backs and recommended further specialist reports, may as well go straight to the specialists for all the usual old house problems IMO!

I agree with what PolterGoose says. If you know old houses then you can probably work out what is going to be in the survey - horror stories of damp, woodworm, etc.

When we moved into our c500 year old house we paid for a specialist survey by an experienced surveyor who works with our particular style of building. Even that was pretty useless, but it did tell us some interesting things about the building that we didn't know, and also pointed us in the right direction in terms of doing repairs etc.

The mortgage valuation survey said something along the lines of "well, it's lasted 500 years so it should be OK for another 15 or so" no kidding!

If you are going to pay for a survey then I would try to find a specialist who is going to provide additional information beyond what you can already work out for yourselves.

You have no relationship with someone else's surveyor, with your own you have a contract and, if they fail to tell you something they should have, can claim against their insurance.

You may feel you can trust the vendor but again, that relationship means nothing if something is not as it seems.

Practically, I agree that getting quotes for the obvious stuff will probably be more enlightening and you need that information anyway but the point of a structural survey is to look at things an amateur, or a specialist tradesman might not notice or describe in the same terms.

Maybe I should add that I know this from bitter and prolonged experience - but this is tempered by the fact that, after two years and much time and effort, we've recently accepted a substantial claim from our surveyor's insurer, as he'd failed to mention some causes for concern that necessitated expensive, urgent work.

The point is that surveyors are regulated and insured. They are the only people who can tell you anything about the state of the house who are, so who you could realistically seek redress from if there's a problem.

As lottiegarbanzo points out, you can't actually rely on the survey because you didn't contract with the surveyor. It means that if the surveyor has missed something material (and they sometimes do), you will have no rights against them. The point of a survey is twofold: to make sure you are fully informed about the state of the property before you reach a decision to buy, and to give you a right of recourse against the surveyor if they have missed something material. If you're happy that you can cover any unexpected costs if something is majorly wrong with this property, then you are probably right that it's not worth you incurring the costs of another survey.

What might be worth doing in this case, however, is contacting the surveyor in question and asking whether they would be prepared either to assign the benefit of the previous contract to you (probably for a fee), or to update the previous survey for a lower fee than if they were starting from scratch. They may not be prepared to do so but it's probably worth making enquiries.

Whatever you do do not get specialist surveys for damp, rot etc from company's for free. These are not unbiased surveys they are sales tactics and will usually highlight a problem which will require a solution that they can provide for a fee. Quite often these solutions are unnecessary, inadequate or can actually damage the building fabric. If you need an expert survey get an independent survey (google relevant professional bodies for lists of qualified providers) it will cost money but will probably less than a 'free' one in the long run & will explain why not just what needs doing.

Interesting wonky - we've had the independent survey on the house we're (supposedly) buying and it has recommended that we get specialists in to asses for eg, damp treatment, woodworm, subsidence/movement etc.

I'm also concerned we're going to be recommended unnecesary work and, given I'm not an expert in this at all, how do we know who to trust? I know it needs woodworm treatment but damp in a 200+ year house? Are damp specialists likely to survey and say 'no work neded'?!

If you get a specialist that only surveys and doesn't sell then they don't have anything to gain by recommending unnecessary work they also will be mote likely to understand the underlying cause which means that whatever treatment you get will actually address the problem fully not just what the particular company deals with. For example the developer we bought this house from put in an injected damp proof course which we were told by the surveyor had failed in one area, unknown to me DH got a damp proofing company out to survey & they said we definitely needed new damp proof course in this area + new plaster work etc. I wasn't convinced (I'm in construction) and after proper investigation found out that the cause was actually that the developer had blocked up two air bricks in the floor void. New air bricks means that now the problem is actually solved and hasn't reoccured.

We had a survey done. Cost us hundreds of pounds - wasn't worth the paper it was written on. As pp said - you buy an old house than you expect work. It is sometimes better to get a good builder round to check things over.

Re damp - you must get someone in who does not work for a damp proofing company. The damp companies say free survey but they just want to sell you a damp proof course and this can often be very damaging to historic properties.

I've provided a link above to the firm who we paid to do our damp survey. The result was that, yes, lots of damp, but some could be sorted by lowering external ground level as over the 200 years the house has been here the ground has risen, mainly advised to heat and ventilate the house properly and see if the damp actually is a problem. The thing is, using a damp meter in an old house built with lime mortar is ridiculous. Our house is sandstone with lime mortars and render so there will always be moisture in the walls, if it dried out it would crumble and collapse